Carlo Casini, president of the Constitutional Affairs Commission of the European Parliament, called for using this initiative when he spoke at the Rimini meeting in August (2011 nn). The ECI would request juridical recognition of conception as the beginning of the right to life being added to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The ECI initiative is an attempt “to bring to its goal and perfection a historical movement that, in the name of equality and human dignity, has freed slaves, promoted people of color, demanded equality of opportunity for women and proclaimed human rights,” Casini said. “It is an attempt,” he added, “to offer Europe the energy of a real civil and moral renewal.”